


A Dating Guide for Depressed Vigilantes

by DJClawson



Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [24]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Danny Rand - Freeform, F/M, Frank Castle - Freeform, Fratt - Freeform, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Luke Cage - Freeform, M/M, Past Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios, Plot lurking in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 12:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20507108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: Foggy didn’t mince words when talking to Matt about his brother. “You cannot fuck this up.”





	A Dating Guide for Depressed Vigilantes

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to LachesisMeg for her beta work!

Foggy didn’t mince words when talking to Matt about his brother. “You cannot fuck this up.”

He’d said the phrase at least a half dozen times, though most of that was in the first few months. Matt was partially terrified, partially amused. Foggy could be fiercely protective in general, but he spoke with the pose of being the older, wiser, more mature brother looking out for the little sibling when it was very much the opposite. Theo would be quiet, shy, and even seem passive, especially beside Foggy’s at-times booming personality, but he had vast reserves of strength. He was capable of patient listening, of quiet contemplation, of certitude about his life choices. Yes, living a secret life had chipped away at him - Matt was familiar enough with that - but it had also toughened him up. Torn flesh came back as scar tissue - it came back harder, less smooth, firmer in place. 

In Theo’s case it had become very literal, but there was a reason he didn’t die on that table, despite his body’s many attempts to do so. His body couldn’t make blood fast enough (and he was already, going in, fairly anemic), his lungs couldn’t pull in their own oxygen, and his blood pressure kept dropping for the first twelve hours in, but he just wouldn’t die. Which is not to say he bounced back. When he was released from the hospital, he couldn’t walk or stay awake for long periods of time. His muscles from long hours on his feet, hacking away at animal flesh, were gone. He right arm hung stiffly, and would have even if he didn’t have to keep it in a sling. Even his breath sounded different, and smelled different, when he wasn’t drawing from two complete lungs and one of them was still healing, but Matt didn’t say that part, even when Theo asked him. His body was diminished, and only some of it would come back.

Then again, Matt couldn’t remember his own life without scars. So.

Theo initially fell into a habit that must have been familiar to him - pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. He never expected Matt to fall for that, since Matt did it practically every day, and had since his accident, but he didn’t love talking about it, either, and Matt didn’t want to pry. So when Theo got the offer to go upstate, Matt said, “Go,” without hesitation and lots of encouragement. Matt, who had only been out of the state a couple times in his life (and all of those trips to New Jersey, usually for doctor appointments when he was a kid), knew that Theo needed distance. He needed a place to freak out safely, away from his family. If there was one thing Matt could say, or at least could have said before Midland Circle, it was that he didn’t have an overbearing family to deal with. 

But G-d, he missed him. 

Theo wasn’t a constant in his life until he was, and then he was gone, and even Sadie was gone, and Matt was home in his own apartment every night, burning off his nerves as the devil but trying not to go overboard, as Karen and Foggy were no doubt expecting him to do. He barely slept when Theo was in the hospital, between work, his shift there, and patrolling Hell’s Kitchen like a madman, looking for any excuse to take a swing at someone. If either of his coworkers put it together from the news, they didn’t comment. Foggy probably didn’t have the capacity to even notice it. 

“I thought you might be catching up on sleep,” Foggy did say to Matt’s swollen eye, covered in an ice pack, several days after Theo left for his grandfather’s. “But I should have known better. Be careful, or I’ll send you to a farm upstate.”

His joints could probably use it, but Matt didn’t say that. And the last thing Theo needed was him, his failed savior, who couldn’t protect anyone important to him. Theo didn’t mean it when he said it, but Matt had thought that since the shooting, and nobody tried to convince him of otherwise. Even his mother gave up after some repeated attempts. Father Killiam forgave him his sins, then forgave him of the sins of not listening to his Confessor or having faith in Christ’s forgiveness, because clearly Matt had not gotten the message the first time around. Lantom had done that too, but with far less patience and even an amused tone sometimes, when Matt confessed the same sin again.

Theo apologized elaborately for everything that he said he could remember of what he’d said to Matt at his parents’ apartment, and then some, over the phone, and because he was Theo, he meant every word and was no doubt wracked with guilt. 

“I can carry enough guilt for the both of us,” Matt said. “Don’t apologize.”

“I shouldn’t have said it.”

“You needed to say it.” Matt was firm. He had prepared himself for this conversation, because in a good way, Theo was predictable. His goodness would come back around. It just took longer, probably mostly because of the hospital-grade drugs in his system numbing him. “It was okay. It was better for you to let your anger out, and I can handle it.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“I accept your apology,” Matt said, and this seemed to settle the matter. Theo didn’t seem so sure on the phone, but he stopped talking about it, so that was good. It was the only thing they talked about related to any recent events other than inquiries about Theo’s physical health. Theo told him about the neighbor’s pet alpaca, and the pottery circle his grandfather and his husband belonged to, and what they gossiped about when they were making mugs, and how you could make a pretty good bong out of clay, but since everyone switched to vaporizers and edibles they just made them to sell to tourists, or for the art of it, because a lot of these people were really professionals at sculpting. He told him about a shop that advertised crystal healing based on your Chinese astrological sign but chosen by your Kabbalistic color alignment, which Theo thought was just too many cultures to steal from at once to sell your useless garbage. Matt told him to ask if they had a crime-fighting special, and if so, to buy a set for him and a set for Danny. Theo laughed.

So when Theo wanted to go away again, after the hearing, all the way to India, Matt encouraged him again. This time, Theo was a little hesitant, and invited Matt to come, even though they both knew he would never do it for a host of reasons, not all of them work-related. If he couldn’t make it to a farm without throwing up, how would he do in India? Where they put dead bodies in their water? This was about Theo’s recovery and Theo would spend the whole time worried about Matt. It was out of the question. Theo was, for obvious reasons, hardier when it came to new experiences because his senses experienced less of them. And Danny would no doubt look out for him, in his Danny way, which could be insanely competent, even though Matt would have some trouble admitting it. Matt wouldn’t trust Danny with certain things as far as he could throw him - which he had done once, very literally - but caring for people, and paying their way, that he could handle. And Theo was a capable adult, on his way to healing, and he needed a little more space before he settled back into his normal life. Again, Matt understood. He spent months at Clinton Church, not speaking to anyone unless he had to, and even then, not much, just processing - Elektra, Elektra, Elektra. Maybe things would have gone faster if he picked up a damn phone, but it was what it was.

Matt still thought about Elektra. Wondered if she was alive. Wondered where she went. Wondered if she wasn’t alive, and if so, where she was. Not in the plot he and Stick bought for her - he checked. He still went, sometimes. It was a different graveyard from his father’s, and it wasn’t nearby. One time Theo offered to go with him and Matt wasn’t strong enough to turn him down.

“Elektra was Jewish?” Theo asked when they arrived. 

“What?”

“This is a Jewish graveyard. There’s Hebrew on all the stones. And no angels or crosses and stuff like that.” 

“Oh.” Matt hadn’t realized. He had never paid attention to that detail. “Stick just said he picked a plot where no one would look for her. I don’t think she was Jewish, but I don’t really know. I don’t think she knew where she was really from. She just told me she was adopted by a nice Greek couple and that was where her name came from.”

“But she had a name before that?”

“Ellie.” Matt put orchids on the grave. “No one else leaves flowers,” he said.

“This is a Jewish graveyard,” Theo said. He looked it up on his phone. “People leave stones instead. That’s what all of the little stones are doing on the headstones. And they pay for upkeep. But no flowers.”

“Should I not leave flowers?”

“I don’t think it’s illegal,” Theo said. “You should do whatever you want to do for her.”

“Even if she’s not here.”

“Even if she’s not here. If you want to come, I think you should come. If you don’t have anywhere else, this is as good as anywhere.”

Theo said Matt always knew what to say, but it was the opposite. Theo was the boyfriend who came to him to visit the non-grave of his ex and then say all the right things. It was why Matt loved Theo - he hadn’t said it, and he wasn’t in love with him, the way he had been with Elektra, but he loved him. He could recognize it. He could admit it, to himself at least. It was different from Elektra and from Foggy and from whatever feelings he had for his mom that he still couldn’t sort out. Theo was just in his own category. 

Theo would eventually leave him for someone better. Someone who could be all the right things to Theo that Matt couldn’t be. But that was okay, too. Or so he told himself, but he didn’t quite believe it. Foggy joked about losing him to Danny, but Theo said Danny wasn’t his type, and if he had walked away from Ward’s money, he wouldn’t be swayed by Danny’s money. He laughed about that, too, behind Foggy’s back, because Foggy didn’t know about Ward. Theo did _ not _ want to talk about his past relationships with his baby brother. When Foggy responded that he told Theo all about Marci, Theo responded, “And I never asked to know any of that shit, thank you very much.” And that was about someone Theo _ liked _. 

While Theo was in India, Matt tried not to go nuts Daredevil-ing (as Foggy put it). He really did. There was a heatwave, so that helped. Heatwaves were about crimes of passion. People who planned things liked to remain indoors with their air conditioners blasting and wait for a cooler season for their robberies and break-ins. Drug dealing happened year-round, but considering the fact that Matt was pretty sure he had accidentally once beat up Theo’s dealer, he decided to go easier on low-level guys selling recreational drugs. 

Also, organized crime had, strangely, decided that maybe Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t the best place to hold meetings or make trades in recent months. Harlem was out too, and Chinatown had its own vigilante now, with a magic sword, and there was no way in hell Matt was taking the subway in the suit, even if it wasn’t much of a suit. He prowled and broke up street fights between drunken bar patrons and occasionally got a call to help out Spider-man, which he would only do if no other Avengers were around. And Frank certainly wasn’t going to call him, and he was pretty sure Frank was semi-retired, anyway. 

One night, when Foggy was consumed with wedding planning, and it was too hot to do much else, Matt and Karen went to Josie’s together. Frank was working nights. Private bodyguarding was a ridiculous industry that paid well, but the hours could be strange.

“Frank says he has yet to meet a client who actually needs a bodyguard,” she explained. “He thinks they’re willing to pay just to be able to tell people that Frank Castle’s got their back. As if they’re expecting something special from him.”

“But he’s out a lot,” Matt observed.

“My rent check isn’t complaining,” she said. 

Things were easier between them now - Matt and Karen - maybe more than they had ever been, with so few secrets between them and with them both seeing other people. What they didn’t share were things they didn’t want or need to share because it wasn’t each other’s business. Karen only offered up what she would be okay with Matt knowing, and Matt did the same about Theo, and his life in general. 

“We’re thinking of taking a trip,” she offered, “to Vermont. I haven’t been back in years, and my dad - well, it’s not really to see my dad. It’s to visit graves. My mom. My brother.”

Matt nodded. “I go see my dad every year, on his birthday and before Christmas. But he’s not far.”

“I haven’t told my dad about it. He doesn’t know about Frank. He doesn’t really know anything about my life. But he’s not getting any younger.”

“What does Frank think?”

“He’s not sure. But he said he has my back, so if I decide to do it ... “

“Yeah.”

“And he can share the drive.”

“I’ve heard that’s an important thing to do be able to do.”

Karen chuckled. “Any news on your front?”

“He calls me sometimes, over Facebook chat, but his reception isn’t great. He just does it because he knows I hate texting. I offered to text, but he tries calling anyway.”

“I’ve seen the pictures on his Facebook page. They’re pretty. India is very picturesque. A lot of temples and palaces. He’s staying near one that’s all marble and gold, in the city with the name I can’t pronounce because I’m terrible.”

“Amritsar.”

She nodded. “And I’m sure whatever Danny’s up to will be ... interesting.”

“I might have talked to him directly,” Matt said. “There might have been a discussion about not getting into trouble.”

“I would pay money to listen to you threaten Danny Rand.”

“I didn’t _ threaten _,” Matt clarified. “He just has some boundary issues when it comes to violence.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Matt decided to be amused by this and grinned. “I’ve never taken Theo on patrol.”

“You think Danny would do that?”

He shook his head. “He said he just chants sutras all day, and I believe him. He isn’t a good liar.”

“You’re one to talk!”

Matt had to smile at that. “Hey, you bought it.”

“I never completely bought the car accident,” she defended. “I just didn’t know you that well, and you were hurt. So I decided not to pry. And when I tried Foggy, he shut me down.”

“I think Foggy might be the only one who can actually keep secrets.” 

“Yeah. We’re lucky to have him.”

Matt knew how right she was several days later, when Foggy showed up in Matt’s apartment after not hearing from him all weekend. Matt wasn’t nursing any wound (a broken rib barely counted as a wound) so much as moping around his apartment. It was big and empty and he was lonely.

“I know that face,” Foggy said as he entered, bearing thai takeout from the one place Matt was willing to eat from. It wasn’t nearby. “You’re brooding.”

“I’m fine.”

Foggy started opening the takeout containers and got them both beers from the fridge. Matt hadn’t so much as gotten up from the couch, feeling a bit stubborn at the intrusion, but - Foggy was Foggy. He was warmth and he lit up the apartment. Matt sometimes imagined him glowing, a yellow like sunlight, though Matt wasn’t entirely sure he was right about the shade of yellow. 

He didn’t weird Foggy out by telling him any of this. Instead, he half-grumbled but joined Foggy at the table. He was in sweats and a hoodie; Foggy was dressed like a proper human being. 

“Don’t you have wedding planning to do?”

“Believe it or not, that doesn’t consume every waking hour of my life. Mostly because my future mother-in-law has really taken charge and honestly, I’m grateful. And so is Marci. She’s got opinions - I mean, it’s her wedding - but she also wants to make partner. So we’re being practical.”

“So you’re not going to scope out reception halls in Harlem?”

Foggy paused, processing what Matt was implying. “Shit, stop smelling me. It’s smell, isn’t it?”

“It’s smell. But not body odor - it’s colognes, expensive alcohol - “

“I didn’t drink it. I was working.”

“ - and those scented terrible oils, the ones they sell on street stands up there.”

Foggy sighed, but didn’t stop from helping himself to noodles. “You’re a lawyer. I have it on good authority that you were educated in attorney-client confidentiality. This is my job, and I can handle it.”

“I’ve heard some things. About Luke.”

“Then go and talk to him about it,” Foggy said. “Wait. No. Don’t actually do that. Everything’s bugged. But trust me when I say everything’s okay.”

Matt was more curious than ever now. “I could go visit Sadie.”

“Fine. I’m not going to stop you from doing that, even though I know you don’t actually want to visit Theo’s mean pirate cat. But don’t assume what you say to Luke is confidential. It’s a club. The walls have ears.”

“She’s not always mean,” Matt said, but let the matter drop. Figuring out Luke’s deal was not a priority. He just knew one thing - Foggy wouldn’t work for an actual mob boss. “But she’ll probably just get mad at me that I didn’t bring Theo.”

“I have it on good authority that she’s sleeping on a pile of his clothes. And your St. Patrick’s day sweater. Or the remains of it. I bought you that sweater, Matt. That was a gift to symbolize our friendship.”

“It was itchy.”

“I’m glaring at you,” Foggy said, even though Matt could always tell. 

Matt didn’t have to brood in his fortress of solitude too long before Theo returned. He smelled mostly of incense, but also cardamom and saffron. It didn’t completely leave him for a few days, even though he washed his hair. He was stronger, standing taller. His right arm didn’t hang so awkwardly, and he wasn’t quiet so skinny, something he attributed to eating tons of fried garlic naan and lentil dosas. 

“You would have hated it,” he told Matt, and Matt wondered how much this was meant to reassure him that he’d made the right decision. “It didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would, but that’s because everyone’s running incense in their altars all the time to cover up the trash. And even I found the long rides pretty uncomfortable.”

“But you loved it.”

“Yeah, I did,” Theo admitted somewhat reluctantly. “But it’s good to be home. Oh - and I got an offer to learn how to make magic portals in some school in Nepal, but I turned it down. Because the moment you learn magic you have to use it to fight dark forces and shit. You can’t use it to just, I don’t know, use portals to avoid taking the subway.”

Matt wasn’t completely sure what he was talking about but he didn’t doubt for a second that any of it was real.

Theo was a zombie for a few days because of jetlag, but he was able to go back to work quickly as long as he didn’t have to think too hard and just sliced up meat. Apparently, close contact with cows hadn’t altered his own magical ability to separate the living things he cared about from his work chopping them up. He seemed steadier, calmer, and while he didn’t admit to anything, Matt overheard plenty about there being fewer freakouts at work, as he was under a very close watch and the Nelsons gossiped well within Matt’s range of hearing. The office was a little far, but Theo’s apartment was easy. Just a block over. 

“I haven’t said anything yet, but I think I’m gonna do it,” he told Matt late at night, after Matt came in from patrolling and Theo was a little high and very sleepy. “I’m gonna stay. Process the paperwork to take majority ownership of the shop and everything.” He turned to Matt. “Tell me I’m not making a horrible mistake.”

“You probably shouldn’t go to a vigilante with an unstable legal practice for career advice,” Matt said, trying to avoid Sadie as he climbed into bed. He was good at maneuvering around her. He’d had lots of practice. “I can’t tell you what to do with your life. But I don’t think doing something that makes you happy is a horrible mistake.”

Seeing the family was another hump for Theo to get over, but it seemed to go well. The focus was on Theo’s grandfather, and his sons trying to find a way to get along again, so Matt wasn’t invited to this more intimate Nelson gathering. The Mahoneys didn’t even go. Matt wasn’t offended, and assured Theo of this. This was something the Nelsons had to work out amongst themselves, and Matt could only be supportive from afar. 

“He doesn’t know about you,” Theo said. “I mean - I’m not used to telling people that I’m seeing someone at all. It’s so weird to me to be able to do that. I never think to do it. Should I?

Matt shrugged. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”

Every inch that pushed them closer to a deeper relationship was scary, for both of them. Neither of them said anything about it. They both had their own, separate issues with commitment; it didn’t need going over again and again. Matt couldn’t be everything Theo needed him to be, not in the long run, and Theo couldn’t stop offering his love and support to Matt and his dangerous lifestyle that Theo only half-joked would kill him one of these days, though now he added that he’d come much closer to death than Matt, maybe. Matt didn’t remember the building falling on him that well. He still didn’t know how he got out. But he hadn’t needed a team of surgeons to keep breathing, so they were probably even. 

Theo got stronger. His muscles developed again. There was still a detectable stiffness to his right side, but only to Matt. Theo returned to normal life - to his shop, to his family, to his friends. He still went to physical therapy, and once a week he went to a meditation class and came back smelling of incense and whatever materials they made yoga mats out of. Matt went with him once, but he was so overtired from trial preparation and breaking up an illegal weapons shipment that he fell asleep immediately. Later, Theo said that he snored, but no one had the heart to wake him because he just looked so tired.

It was Jessica Jones, of all people, who told Matt what he already knew, but needed to hear, when he went to her office to ask about a case he was thinking of hiring her for. Over vodka, she said, “When people like us find people we don’t deserve, we can either hold on to that shit, or we can let them go. But you’re so G-ddamn moody I can’t imagine you even more depressed, so yeah, hold on tight.” 

Matt had no response but to drink from his glass. He hadn’t asked, but fine. Jessica always knew more than she let on. Matt played dumb, too - about Jessica, anyway, since she didn’t like him knowing anything about her. Of the Defenders - their loose group with nebulous membership - she was the trickiest to deal with, and even though she lived in Hell’s Kitchen, Matt mostly stayed out of her way. She didn’t need his “shit” in her life. But here she was, talking about him and Theo, without using names. 

Matt could smell the packaging from Nelson’s Fine Meets in the garbage by her desk - wax paper that had been layered around a pastrami sandwich. She’d ordered lunch, and Theo only made deliveries for special people. He hadn’t mentioned it, but it wasn’t something Theo would mention. 

“Okay,” Matt finally said. Hold on tight.

He would try his best.

End


End file.
